Earlier in the year, around June or so, I noticed a lot of problems with my internet connection. Although the line speed would remain constant at an acceptable and expected level, download speeds were ridiculously slow and it was near impossible to stream any multimedia. Watching anything on YouTube was impossible, and generally required that I pre-load the video before starting playback.
About a month prior I had purchased a new router – a Belkin Play series – to replace a defective NetGear DG834GV, which provided a good connection but had problems giving stable WiFi connectivity. Most devices wouldn’t connect wirelessly to it, and that’s if they even recognised it. The Belkin was brought in to replace it and I was impressed with it’s ease of setup and relatively simple configuration web portal.
It was soon after I noticed the problems described. My first thought was a defective unit, but after performing a factory reset things went back to normal for a few weeks. Then they returned, and a factory reset usually fixed any problems.
Even so, I opened a ticket with Internode to determine if there was a line fault present – although I said the NetGear worked well, I occassionaly had similar problems, but not as frequent. Someone there performed some checks and decided that as far as they were concerned, all equipment was working as expected and no line fault existed. At the same time I replaced my telephony equipment (phone cables and filters) just to see if they were the cause, and also tried using the secondary phone outlet. No change noticed.
After setting up the NetGear again, the same symptoms were experienced. Slow speeds, unable to stream anything and web pages generally taking forever to load.
One of the best things about Dick Smith Electronics is their 14-day return policy. This makes it easy to “borrow” equipment for testing purposes. So, armed with my favourite Visa card, I headed down to the local store and grabbed a random D-Link modem from the shelf. Setting it up at home, I was surprised to find that everything worked perfectly – even better than before. So, two defective routers, which isn’t unusual. At this point I decided just to keep the D-Link unit I had intended to return, and process a warranty claim with Belkin. After a few minutes, however, the same issues as experienced with the other two routers returned. Now, one defective router, sure. Two, ok. But three? Unlikely.
At this point I was mostly convinced that it was either a line fault or an issue with Internode. The D-Link unit was returned to Dick Smith (thanks guys!) and another ticket submitted to Internode. After a few days a response came back, and re-iterated what they said the first time: everything appears normal.
After putting up with horrible internet speeds for a month, I finally decided I’d had enough. A terse email was sent to Internode’s feedback box, and soon after I received a response: A Tier 2 technician would be investigating the problem, and that I should expect a phone call at some point in the coming days. Sure enough, a phone call came, and I ran through about an hour of tests. All the symptoms were demonstrated, but according to the tech, everything looked normal at his end. Even though he didn’t suspect a line fault, he still booked a Telstra tech to come out and check over the boundary and the exchange. A second phone call revealed that this had taken place and everything was normal.
At this point, the tech said that it may well be a case of three defective routers, however unlikely. As the D-Link had been returned already, he requested that I lodge a warranty claim with Belkin and have it swapped out. If the problems persisted after the replacement had been put in place, he’d kick the ticket up higher.
So, it was off to Belkin.
Going by what was stated on Belkin’s website, warranty exchanges were easy: request an exchange, have it sent out to you, and return the defective unit to them in a provided satchel. The exchange process could either kick off with an email request or a phone request. Seemed easy.
Not so.
Calling Belkin’s Australian support line, I was redirected to an overseas call center. The girl I spoke to there clearly had NO understanding of technology, and simply wanted to read everything that had been scripted for her rather than just accept that the router was potentially faulty. After explaining that I had connectivity issues, and suspected the router was at fault, she insisted that changing the WiFi channel would correct the problem. For about 4.12ms I considered arguing with her on this (while testing the router with her over the phone my iMac was plugged in via Ethernet), but decided just to go along with it rather than deal with someone who clearly had no idea what the hell was going on. Further idiotic questions, such as loading Internet Explorer (“I don’t have that, I run Macs”) met with such ludicrous statements like “Our routers do not support Mac computers”. Despite what it says on the box and their own website. After 45 minutes of this stupidity, I hung up.
I have no issue with a company performing basic troubleshooting to stop frivolous or unnecessary exchanges. But 45 minutes (plus 10 on hold) to get nothing but a heap of ridiculous questions and answers?
At this point I submitted a ticket via the Belkin website. Surprisingly, it was answered very quickly, but it was clear that the support was provided by the same team who handled the phone inquiries. After a number of exchanges back and forth (most of which were just repeats of what I had already gone through over the phone), it was determined that I’d receive a replacement unit and that I should expect it in a week.
Two weeks later, and I was still without my replacement router. A follow up ticket revealed that “the router had been sent last week, and is probably still in transit”. Fair enough. It’s unusual that a parcel sent via private courier would take a week to arrive from Sydney, but eh, it happens.
The following day a courier rocked up with a large box and inside was my new router. I’d been given an “upgraded” model, which in reality was just the same unit with some extra proprietary features that no-one ever uses. Interestingly, the document inside the parcel stated that the exchange had only been processed the previous day – co-inciding with my follow up ticket. I suspect that my exchange request had been forgotten about and only actioned once I’d contacted them to find out what was going on.
Regardless, this was no way to deal with warranty claims and is why my next router purchase won’t be a Belkin.